I get e-mails from readers all the time who are frustrated with things at work. Sometimes it’s things like weight loss contests or signs around the office promoting weight loss. Sometimes it’s more sinister – like people being required to participate in Weight Watchers in order to keep their benefits or to avoid having to pay more for benefits.
Approaching this is tricky. There can be office politics involved, or someone may fear for their job. Even if someone is willing to go in guns a blazing that may not be the best tactic. It’s important to remember that when you want a specific response, the way that you communicate your request is often the determining factor in whether or not your audience is receptive, and thus whether or not you get what you want.
I’m about to give you a bunch of ideas, please understand that some will be a great idea for one workplace and a horrible idea for another workplace. Know who you are dealing with. How do they like to be communicated with? Are they open to employee suggestions or do they get defensive?
Next, get your facts straight. Gather research that supports your case and make sure you understand it. There is a research bank in the documents for the Rolls Not Trolls group, and Big Liberty has a great list on her website.
You can always go the direct route. Send the research and ask why the company is still pushing weight loss.
When you are told that you have to lose weight to get benefits or attend Weight Watchers, let them know that it’s against your Health at Every Size practice. If you have a HAES-friendly doctor, try to get a doctor’s note.
Consider using a questioning technique. For example, send a study or an article about the issues with BMI as a health measure attached to an e-mail that says “I found this research about BMI that seems to disagree with the way that our company uses BMI to measure health. Can you help me make sense of it?”
or
“I found this research that shows that more than 95% of people who do Weight Watchers end up gaining their weight back and often they gain back more. I’m sorry for my confusion, I must be missing something here. Can you help me understand the company’s decision to go with Weight Watchers?”
Sometimes assumptive questioning works, but be careful or it can come off as bitchy:
“A friend of mine was telling me that there isn’t a single study that shows that weight loss works for more than a small fraction of people. I told her that can’t be true since our company health program is based on weight loss. Could you please give me the studies that our program is based on so that I can help educate her?”
“I understand that the company has created an initiative whose goal is for me to lose weight. I’d like to study up, when you have a minute can you send me the research that this program is based on?”
You can also become public about your Health at Every Size practice and talk about it like other people talk about their diets.
Finally, you can ask your HR to bring in Health at Every Size Speakers to do lunch and learns, presentations etc. I got to speak at Google and Apple because of employees who asked for these kinds of talks.
Speaking of me, I want to tell y’all something cool. A lot of people don’t know that I retired from a career as a business operations consultant to do this work. One of my goals has been to combine these things to help companies make sure that they are treating their employees and their customers of size well. We’ve been working on a more professional website for me and now it’s done: www.SizedForSuccess.com Woo Hoo!
Back to the subject at hand – work can be tricky. However you decide to approach this, my basic suggestions are: Take office politics into account, understand the risks, get your facts straight, craft a message that’s likely to cause people to want to engage with you (and not likely to make them defensive or pissed), and be ready to help them figure out how to create the solution that you’re looking for.
Online Meet-up
By reader request, I’m going to try something new. On Wednesday the 11th at 8:30 Central time we are having an online meet-up. This will be an ask me anything meet-up where you can ask me questions and get and give feedback yourself. This is free for voluntary subscribers (see below) and just $5 for everyone else. If this works we’ll be doing them a couple times a month with different themes. Click here to sign up Once you’re signed up I’ll get you all the details. Questions? E-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!
This blog is supported by its readers rather than corporate ads. If you feel that you get value out of the blog, can afford it, and want to support my work and activism, please consider a paid subscription or a one-time contribution. The regular e-mail subscription (available at the top right hand side of this page) is still completely free. Thanks for reading! ~Ragen
Dances With Fat 
Any chance the on line meetups will be on different days/times? I happen to teach at that time and can’t be home to participate, much as I’d like to!
The site looks nifty, but the banner is too wide for my screen (MacBook Air, 1280×900) Thought you might like to know. 🙂
Definitely too wide for my Acer mini laptop as well. It reads “Health comes in all sha”
my screen also has trouble handling all that awesomeness on your new site. sorry, i have no idea what the specs of my hardware are! absolutely thrilled that you are sharing your journey with us, though.
Thanks for letting me know – we are working on it!
~Ragen
My work did a weight loss and fitness contest but it was totally voluntary. Only a few people did it and I think they all quit before the time was even up.
That said, I want to point out that even voluntary weight loss contests can be incredibly stigmatizing. (I’m not saying this was the case for the one at your work, only that it can be true.) With the ones my employer has held, there’s been significant pressure to participate — not necessarily from management/HR, but as a sort of “team spirit” among employees.
I’ve offered gentle criticism twice, both times pointing out that a health challenge which centers around weight loss may be neither healthy nor safe for someone with, say, a history of restrictive disordered eating.
One time, the response was that folks were welcome to participate in the fitness/nutrition portion without participating in the weight loss portion — then proceeded to contact only the people who signed up for weight loss for any of the other activities. Let me tell you, it was super awesome to deal with a myriad of “why weren’t you there”s with the only response of, “Apparently, I was not on that email list.” (A lot of people openly accused me of lying about that as an excuse to not follow through with my ‘weight loss challenge.’)
The other time, it was for a school fundraiser (I’m a teacher), and the response was basically, “But won’t you please think of the children!” That is, the event organizer literally asked me to put aside “the inconvenience of working to lose weight” in order to raise money for a worthy cause. When I again responded that my concern was not convenience but rather my personal health and safety, he responded that he thought it was unfair to change the terms of the challenge because it had been decided by the students. (Protip: This is why student groups have faculty advisors.)
Why “voluntary” activities like that at work are rarely truly voluntary. . .
Thank you for giving possible ways of approaching this subject at work! I love that you have given examples of how to question authority in ways that invite conversation… my only concern is that some of these ways involve ‘playing dumb’- a dangerous game to play for a professional woman.
To avoid this situation I especially like the following option you gave. It allows me to ask hard questions without compromising my well earned place as a intelligent woman:
“I understand that the company has created an initiative whose goal is for me to lose weight. I’d like to study up, when you have a minute can you send me the research that this program is based on?”
Thanks for the comment Harty.
I see what you are saying about playing dumb and I can certainly understand not wanting to compromise your place as an intelligent woman.
From my perspective it’s not playing dumb but rather passing the responsibility to the party who is initiating the intervention (where it belongs). If I go in and say that I know that there isn’t research that backs up the program, then I am going to put myself in the situation of having to prove that – and it is extremely difficult to prove that research doesn’t exist. By using an assumptive question I give the other party the benefit of the doubt that they’ve done the research (which can help bring down possible defensiveness), acknowledges their position as “expert” in the company (which helps create a respectful dialog), as well as putting the burden of proof on them which I think is an intelligent move.
I also worry that if we have to act like we know everything to be considered an intelligent woman we are setting ourselves up for failure. As the turnaround CEO for a multi-million dollar corporate conglomerate I think that I never looked more intelligent than when I admitted that I didn’t know everything and encouraged dialog, asking experts, and learning for myself and everyone else.
Of course, I would never suggest that you do anything that you aren’t comfortable with so I’m glad that one of the suggestions works for you!
Thanks,
~Ragen
Great post as always.
But the link to “talk about it like everybody else talks about their diets,” which is the approach I use most often with colleagues, is broke. And I really wanted to read that!
Thanks for this terrific post! My work is doing a Wellness Month in June and I’m going to use some of these ideas and resources to have a preemptive talk with them about including HAES.
Virginia That link should be https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/explaining-health-at-every-size/
It has an extra http:// at the end that is making the link not work. Hope that helps, it is a great read!
Thank you Ragen this is wonderful I am excited about the meetup I will have to try attend
Thanks for the shout-out, Ragen. I just updated the list with links to Dr. Linda Bacon’s resources and her “Weight Paradigm” article. I can’t believe I didn’t have those already! I update it in fits and starts, so I encourage anyone and everyone who comes across new studies, stories about discrimination against fat people, and other relevant items, please use the Contact Form on my site to send them to me, or comment on the page (it will go to moderation, but I’ll see it in the admin panel).
Here is an interesting link for you, Ragen, on weight discrimination in the workplace http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57407790/is-it-ok-to-discriminate-against-obese-people Note that there is some shaming in the article. It ties right into your post on legal bullying (or discrimination)
For those that avoid triggers, I really advise skipping the comments section of that article. Really pathetic stuff in there.
When people talk with me about their office “Biggest Loser” contests, I always suggest that they talk with their colleagues about having “Biggest Winner” contests instead, where each person identifies their own progress toward a goal that’s relevant to their health, rather than assuming that everyone wants or “needs” to lose weight.
I’m super relieved that the company where I work is doing a voluntary fitness challenge based purely on getting more exercise (mainly walking):
http://www.cornerstonefitness.com/public/10ksteps.html
Looking forward to my free pedometer 🙂